


Two Spacers and Some Animals

by V6ilill



Series: Shooting star falls fast, falls far [7]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Asexual aromantic Captain, Autistic Captain (The Outer Worlds), Family, Felix is Rockwell's son, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Game(s), Team as Family, allusions to past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29243430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V6ilill/pseuds/V6ilill
Summary: After everything they've been through together, the captain asks Felix if she can adopt him as her brother.Features two young revolutionaries with not a single braincell between them hunting mantisaurs, having ideological and philosophical discussions, being awkward together, nerding over comic books and discussing past trauma.Note: standalone in the series. contains spoilers for nothing but the game
Relationships: Female Captain & Felix Millstone, The Captain & Felix Millstone, past Felix Millstone & Clyde Harlow, past the Captain & Original Character
Series: Shooting star falls fast, falls far [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560577





	Two Spacers and Some Animals

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after realizing that in the epilogue slides, it never says Felix ever leaves the captain.

“My brother was always something of an asshole,” the captain reminisced, swinging her feet from the railing. A crutch was positioned neatly in her lap. “You had the same problem, no?”

“Clyde wasn’t always like that,” Felix gazed up at the sunrise, frowning.

“He lost his way,” May sighed “You haven’t. You can become the revolutionary he failed to be.”

“That’s very - what’s the word? - poetic,” he remarked “But nobody cares for that. No, all the people care about is filling their bellies. They don’t even care what the companies did with the Hope, all they want is saltuna and canned soup.”

“Which the companies are doing a very good job of providing,” May noted.

“Hey, you’re right,” Felix brightened again. There were very few things that could keep him sad for long. “While they’re dumbassing their dumb asses around, we’re feeding the people! Parvati wrote today, she said she set up one of those water-farms with her other half. Ain’t that cool and science-y?”

“It’s not hard to understand!” the former lab assistant protested “You put fish in one tank, lettuce in the other! Fish shit fertilizes the lettuce-”

“Come on, I was just pulling your leg!” he patted her on the shoulder “The good one.”

“The better one,” May corrected “Besides, I know jack shit about hydroponics myself, I just saw a picture in a magazine once.”

“That still makes you about five times smarter than the Board’s average,” Felix proclaimed.

“The PR department says the Chairman’s intelligence is immeasurable,” May countered.

“Wow, really? I didn’t think he was THAT stupid,” his eyebrows nearly hit the stratosphere “I just thought he was somewhere in the ‘mildly impaired’ range.”

“Good riddance either way,” the captain shrugged “That was real nasty of him, implying he was your dad. That’s probably the only thing keeping him relevant right now, after he’s bit my fist.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Felix asked.

“Well, to be fair, you were the only person around he could pull that on,” she claimed “I and Parvati aren’t exactly pale. But then again, there’s a lot of ways to mess with a guy which don’t implicate yourself in fathering bastards.”

“The real million-bit question is if he could’ve thought of such a way,” he pondered the skyline.

“Well, he did think of something to insult me and Parvati,” May brought up “So the matter of your parentage seems resolved for now.”

“I guess it’s a good thing he dumped me on the Groudbreaker to live in the dumps like a sprat,” Felix fiddled with his fingers “At least I didn’t grow up to be like him.”

“That’s rough, mate,” the captain nodded sympathetically “My actual mom was pretty bad too, dumping me from the side of her car and whatnot. ‘Cept in my time, there was an actual government around to punish such A+ parenting decisions.”

“What’s a car?” he looked at May.

The woman sighed deeply. With every passing year, her love for Halcyon only grew.

“It’s a spaceship that rides along the ground,” she explained.

“Sounds pointless,” Felix blinked.

“Yeah, well it was invented first,” May shrugged.

Felix turned his gaze back to the sky.

“All of my non-shitty family members are dead.” he lamented “And all the shitty ones probably too.”

“Same here,” the captain nodded “Wanna do something about it?”

“Huh?” Felix squinted at her.

“Can I adopt you as my brother?”

“Uh,” said Felix, his mind popping up error message after error message as he tried processing what his ears were telling him “Um. Huh. Don’t you already have a brother?”

“It’s complicated,” May hid her head between her shoulders “I’m not sure he’d understand what’s happened with me here. But I’ve never had a younger brother before, that would be a first. Do you need time to think?”

Time to think. Maybe. There wasn’t that much to think about. It was either disagree and go to life as it was before (with 15% more awkward!), or become family with the Captain of the Unreliable, hero of the revolution, savior of Halcyon and the person who had watched his back for nearly one and half years. Well, Parvati was in his corner too, but she was like that with everyone.

“It really doesn’t take a lot to win your undying loyalty,” Felix joked. The captain clapped her gauntlets together nervously.

“Maybe it’s cause everyone I met as a child wanted to exploit me for fame or thought me weirdo?” she muttered, turning her head away “Um, don’t tell Parvati, but I like you more. So it’s not like I find all my friends be family.”

“I shall always endeavor to keep your secrets, captain,” he smiled reassuringly “But I thought you were just my very nice non-corporate boss, not, um, family.”

“It’s not like I had authority beyond what the team allowed me to have,” May shrugged “Even the ship herself doesn’t always listen to me. Besides, everyone else has left, and I thought since you hung around, I could . . .”

Felix could have someone who’d always be in his corner. Someone he could come back to, no matter what. Someone who had bit the bitter pill of betrayal, and knew how much it stung as much as he did. Someone whose goodness he could believe in, no matter what. That’s what family was supposed to be like, wasn’t it?

“Yeah, ADA is something unto herself,” Felix muttered “Aw, don’t give me that look! It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. Besides, I’m not averse to having a sister, you don’t even have cooties!”

“Don’t be so critical of yourself, there are plenty of dissident who would love to find someone as dedicated as you,” May stood, leaning onto her crutch “But enough sitting round. Let’s go kill some mantisaurs!”

“You aren’t exactly a warrior anymore,” Felix wisely pointed out “How’s that gonna go?”

“I’ll get to test my new sniper rifle!” she beamed at him “That’s how it’s gonna go! Come on, I take it I have a brother now?”

“Sure!” Felix busted out his gaudy grenade rifle “But don’t think I’ll be calling you big sis anytime soon. You’re a little too short for that!”

“Ugh,” said May “When will the height jokes ever end?”

“When you’re dead,” the man proclaimed “Besides, you’re just like a sprat: cute, yet infinitely deadly. Maybe tasty too, roast sprat is the best.”

May laughed into her palm. Felix beamed back his usual lopsided grin. After meeting her, he had never truly been alone. He wondered if she felt the same.

The sky was clear, weather was tepid, and May had grown quite proficient with crutches.

“You’re scaring away all the prey,” he complained after an hour of fruitless searching.

“No, you’re just going in circles,” she heaved herself over a small rock.

“Man, what wouldn’t I give for ADA’s navigation charts,” Felix sighed wistfully.

“Maybe if we asked nicely . . .” May’s hindsight gave her a great idea. As always, it was only in hindsight where she demonstrated her above-average intelligence. “But really, what would you give? Would you sell your soul to a machine?”

“When you put it that way it does sound kinda bad,” he rubbed his forehead. The sun continued glaring at him from above. “But I’m sure she’d keep it safe! Haven’t you read the Rizzo-man comics? His archrival Braham Gryant sold his soul to the Spirit of Philosophism and got a pretty sweet suit in return!”

When Felix first arrived on Monarch, all he’d wanted was to meet the famed dissident leader gracing the planet with his presence. Now he knew better. It barely stung to remember Bryant.

“His costume is awful,” May disagreed.

“Hey, he had to show off those mile-wide abs somehow,” Felix protested.

The conversation devolved into a discussion about character design. Apparently, the captain, a somewhat prolific (by the standards of Halcyon, anyway) artist, had Opinions about certain clothing elements, both drawn and not. Very loud Opinions. The kind that could be heard for miles.

This was the approximate moment at which May and Felix jointly realized that mantisaurs were attracted to sound.

May dropped down and extracted her sniper rifle which was roughly one-third her length.

“Cause a distraction,” she commanded “But don’t stand in my way.”

Felix bobbed his head in a rough imitation of a nod and drew his own weapon.

“Hey! Who wants to see the fireworks?!” he shouted, brandishing a large gun at the insects.

The mantisaur drones and soldiers, seeing a worthy opponent for the first time in their pitiful lives, roared a challenge and began charging. As their proximity increased in leaps and bounds, Felix really began feeling all the time he’d spent away from Monarch. Mere animals weren’t supposed to be that fast!

May, as befitted a (supposed) sniper, blew off the head of a drone with a headshot that was anything but clean, if the fountain of blood and ricocheting carapace pieces were anything to go by. While she reloaded, Felix busied himself with learning to run and shoot at the same time. Given that aiming with a grenade gun was entirely optional, that didn’t prove too hard. The mantisaur swarm was very keen to explode in large quantities.

Unfortunately, they proved too explosive when the corpse of a mantisaur drone promptly fell on Felix, pinning him to the ground under several hundred pounds of charred meat and medium rare exoskeleton.

Felix blinked, and found himself staring in the eyes of a mantisaur. A dead mantisaur, to be precise. Very romantic to be sure, but Felix was more worried over the rest of the swarm also being there.

He wiggled, trying in vain to free himself from the constricting corpse. The gun in his hands pressed on his chest as his arms were forced down. He turned on his side, limbs splaying out. A mantisaur drone appeared before him, teeth gnashing. Felix flailed backwards, fumbling for the trigger.

The creature dove after him, latching on to his outstretched arm. Its claws found his lightly-armored torso, grasping his sides, dragging him out of the pile. The mantisaurs converged, each extending razor-sharp claws to mince the meat and bring it to the hive in pieces. Felix found every one of his limbs pinned in place, pointed talons digging into flesh. He trashed, skin peeling off in long strips. The largest mantisaur parted its enormous jaws, rows upon rows of teeth ready to dig into fresh meat-

-and fell, a bullet exploding through its skull. In a blur, the other mantisaurs suffered a similar fate, their meaty corpses collapsing all over Felix. He wrenched his arm free from the now-slack mouth of a monster, grasping bleeding wounds with shaking fingers.

“You okay?!” May yelled, descending from the hilltop with lumbering slowness. She swayed side to side as if drunk. “Hanging in there?”

“Did we pack bandages?” Felix shouted right back “Cuz I’m getting a feeling that I’d really like some in the near future!”

“Dammit!” May exclaimed, as if trying to out-shout her buddy. She threw herself next to Felix, aggressively pressing on his bleeding wounds. While he resisted the urge to hiss like a feral sprat, the injuries mostly stopped gushing blood. It was uncertain if May putting pressure on them actually helped.

“Oof,” said Felix, sitting up “I don’t think I can walk by myself.”

“Same here,” said May.

An awkward silence descended from the sky.

“I’m sure if we try hard enough, the power of friendship will let us limp somewhere,” Felix offered.

May nodded distractedly, putting an arm around his waist. She pulled him upright with a grunt, teetering precariously on her crutch. Felix helped out by prying off his chestplate, dropping it right in May’s path. Before he could so much as realize his grave mistake, he was already laying facedown in the dirt.

“. . . thanks for helping me out, bro,” said the captain somewhere above him.

Felix spat out the soil. “Always ready to lend a chestplate.”

He sat up. May poked at her feet, which twitched and jerked uncooperatively. Her back was hunched and fatigue snared her movements. The sun was dipping lower in the sky.

“We’re a little screwed,” Felix realized. Then he realized he should’ve seen that sooner.

“A little? Come on, this is just what usually happens when we try and save the colony,” May retorted “Every damn time. If I didn’t have friends here, I’d be screwing off to be a lab assistant on Outpost-11.”

“That frozen colony at the edge of known space?” Felix remembered “Yeesh, you must really love Halcyon.”

“Don’t you ever feel it would be easier to just leave this hole to its problems and try your luck in one of the less insane colonies?” May patted the dirt next to her rather invitingly. Felix scooted over gracelessly, finding his body full of aches.

“I haven’t really thought of that,” he scratched his chin “Besides, I have always been poor.”

“Good point,” said May, realizing she couldn’t leave Halcyon even if she wanted to. Hello, helplessness, old friend . . .

“It’s not easy, seeing this revolution through, but you can bet I will,” Felix declared “Someday, I can rest easy knowing that I did everything I could to save Halcyon.”

“I did everything I could too,” the captain looked at her crutch “I did everything I could and it was all for nothing. I killed thirty people for Phineas so he could- could go not punished . . . go and kill more colonists-!”

Felix winced. He remembered the people who had won the Lifetime Employment lottery, the image of fresh bodies branded into his mind as searingly as Rizzo’s jingle. Was remembering the test subjects like that for May? Did she wake up sometimes, and realize she’d been dreaming about saving them, about solving a problem that didn’t need a solution anymore?

“I feel ya,” he put a hand on May’s shoulder “You know how I keep thinking of-of all the innocents the Board has trampled down into the mud to die like sprats and swine. But I-I feel like it’s gotten better with time, you know? Surely you’ve noticed that yourself?”

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The memory did flare up whenever Felix contemplated how, for his own existence to happen, Rockwell had to have been around to steal, murder and oppress.

“I did,” she nodded “Then Phineas- the Hope-”

Felix put another hand on May’s shoulder. Then pulled her into a hug for good measure. That hurt a bit, but what was some pulling on fresh wounds in the face of friendship?

May let out a sob. Felix squished her a little more. Clouds drifted lazily in the sky. Felix suddenly remembered the raging storms endemic to this planet. Truly a great place to be injured and stranded in.

“Maybe we could try walking again,” the captain said after calming down.

“Great idea!” said Felix and proceeded to faceplant into the mud at the slightest movement upward.

May laughed at his pain and offered a hand, pulling them both into something resembling a standing position. The two adventurers stumbled towards the horizon, holding onto each other for dear life. The sun drooped towards the horizon, framed by clouds and the planet above.

“For a moment there, with the mantisaurs on top of you, I thought . . .” May began, checking the ground for unevenness “I thought you were . . . listen. Listen, maybe we should start planning for fights before we get into them.”

“Maybe you should’ve thought of that when the Chairman’s giant robot broke both your legs,” Felix added “You’re real lucky, captain, but luck didn’t do much then. I’ve gotten used to mortal danger, if I might say so myself, yet you seem to land on death’s door every Tuesday. The good of the revolution demands we stay alive!”

“I’ll probably do more good for the revolution as a martyr,” she chuckled “Without me constantly there to fuck things up, maybe I’ll even be remembered as a good person!”

“Don’t think like that, mate,” Felix shook his head solemnly “It’s not your problem Phineas picked poorly. You could’ve negotiated with the Adjutant, let Monarch Stellar gun down the Iconoclasts and told me Graham Bryant was right to genocide for the greater good. You didn’t.”

“My persistent self-hatred is not very logical sometimes. Who could’ve guessed?” May staggered for a moment, but quickly righted herself and Felix through time-slowing “Maybe it’s dumb to think of anyone here in Halcyon as a hero. Maybe all of us rebels are just decent people tired of living to line the pockets of the one percent. Some dissidents can’t cope and slide into evil, some are just forced by circumstance to do horrible things for a cause that might not end up winning. Some are super nice and nobody hears about the bad they did.”

“Anyone who seriously refers to themself as a hero or savior, I’ve learned to distrust,” the man noted “Except for me. I can do no wrong, watch me not commit mass murder this very second!”

“I already know you’re a paragon of morality,” May chuckled “Hey, stop stepping on my toes!”

“I need practice for when I encounter the Board again,” Felix teased “Their toes are much more slippery.”

“Just blow them up,” the captain sighed “Wait, no, that’s not how society gets rebuilt. I think. You know, it might be a problem. That nobody is really sure what comes after the Board, I mean.”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Felix frowned “Obviously we’re building a communist utopia, like the Iconoclasts say.”

“I hope Philosophism doesn’t turn out to be a cult,” May muttered “And I sure hope that whatever Monarch Stellar is planning and whatever the Groundbreaker exists as and the Iconoclasts after the government burns will turn out compatible with each other! Everyone here is so used to being used as tools of enrichment - the whole colony was founded to bring in big money to whoever was in charge - so I don’t know what should replace this. I don’t know how to replace this.”

Felix stayed silent. For a revolutionary, moral conundrums sure freaked him out. Once he thought rebellion itself was good, once he thought the Iconoclasts could do no wrong. Once he had a brother named Clyde who, a teller of tall tales, who whispered of glory and revolution . . .

The terrain was really uneven, Felix found, as he tripped on a loose rock and went flying, sending May careening towards the ground after him. He put his arm out to shield his face and the rocky ground stabbed right into his recent injuries, digging into wounds. Felix hissed, rolling to the side. May had let go of him and was stumbling upright to the side. The stones tore skin and ripped open ragged gashes. Felix gasped as blood dripped onto the soil, searing pain shooting through his arm. He felt like the sharp rocks had stabbed him to the bone.

“Oh shit,” said May, her looming figure blurring with every heartbeat “Oh shit!”

Felix squeezed his eyes shut, clamping his fingers around the dripping wounds. Pieces of dirt bit into his flesh and it burned- burned-! He had to get them out-

Something grabbed him, turning his body to the side. Felix groaned, digging nails into his wounds. He needed to get the dust out- get it out! Out, damned speck! The injuries throbbed in sync with his heartbeat and the world grew faint. Consciousness fuzzed around the edges - in a moment it was all gone and he was plastered into the ground by the crushing grip of sleep. He didn’t even struggle as darkness seized him.

After an indeterminable amount of time, consciousness reasserted itself. Felix felt faint, and there was a terrible taste in his mouth, like he’d just vomited. On second thought, it was blood. He couldn’t place whether he was sitting or laying down, and his eyelids seemed insurmountably heavy. There was a hammering pain in his skull and he couldn’t recall what he’d been doing before . . . this.

Slowly, awareness returned, together with pain. Both his arms throbbed along the length of the ripped skin and he was moving - being moved? Felix kept swaying from side to side, nausea rising up every time.

“. . . May?” Felix coughed.

“You better?” she wondered “Hurts much?”

“Yeah . . . I guess it’s better that I’m conscious,” he winced as he was jostled “Wait . . . are you carrying me? How is that possible? You broke both legs two weeks ago!”

“I dunno,” said May “but it’s happening. I mean, it sure hurts, but nothing too ba-”

She proceeded to faceplant into the ground, as she often did when no enemies were around to make her pay attention. Felix yelped and fell right on top her.

“That went well,” she commented sourly from down below.

“Just like everything else we do,” Felix joked. Then, a terrifying thought jolted across his mind “Wait. You can still walk, right?”

“Uh,” said May, poking him in the ribs so that he’d roll off her “ . . . that’s a good question.”

She jammed the crutch into the ground and shakily lifted herself onto it, swaying like a drunk after five and half bottles of Spectrum Vodka. She took a hobbling step, her left foot spasming visibly.

“Yup, can walk,” May confirmed brightly “The question is, for how long.”

“Looks bad,” said Felix, then cringed in pain. His arm felt like he’d leisurely held it atop a hot stove for fun.

“You too,” the captain looked him over. She smacked the fingers of her left arm against her palm. “I’m not sure this crutch can carry us both.”

“Yeah,” Felix breathed, staring vacantly at her legs “What are you going to do?”

“We,” May corrected, staring back at him just as vacantly “I dunno. Try carrying you again?”

Felix remembered that time when he’d found her in her room, completely unmoving, both legs swollen like they would burst, ruined skin flaking off in long ribbons. May hadn’t yet healed from that (if it was something one could heal from), and now she would break both legs again to carry Felix?

He felt even more ill. He had been the healthy one that morning - and now- now-

“I mean, what else are we gonna do? I can’t just leave you here,” the captain consoled, having somehow noticed his fear. How obvious must he have been?

Felix bit his cheek. He had an idea. A pretty stupid idea, but there were no geniuses currently at hand. If he were a little more intelligent, a little more calculating, a little more observant, maybe he could find another way out. Come to think of it, if he were smarter, he could’ve done so much more for the revolution.

But he wasn’t. So that’s that.

“You could leave me here,” Felix suggested. His jaw protested every movement. “Go and limp to town, and have the nice people of Stellar Bay help out.”

“No.” said May “I’m not abandoning you.”

“You won’t make it back while carrying me,” Felix propped himself up against a rock “I have a gun, I can defend myself.”

“I can crawl,” the captain dismissed Felix’s concerns while trying to hook her arms around his body.

“No,” Felix pushed her hands away “Don’t fuck up your legs for real. Listen, I’ll be fine. I got kicked around by a giant robot and lived to tell the tale, I can survive a few hours in the wilderness.”

“I can’t just leave you,” May shook her head “You’ll be dead by when I’ll be back.”

“Ask Monarch Stellar for help. They like you, especially that guard - I think his name was Grimm?” Felix suggested “They’ll help out.”

“I’m not abandoning you,” she repeated like a broken record “I don’t abandon anyone . . .”

“You won’t be,” Felix repeated. Why couldn’t she understand? “You’ll come back. I know you always do.”

May wrung her hands, fingers clacking against each other. “I’ve swore I will never leave my friends - family - alone, not after all the times I’d been,” she cleared her throat, struggling to speak “S-so I can’t. You’re not that heavy to carry anyway.”

“You’ll break both your legs for nothing. I know you would never abandon me, so stop wasting your time and go.” Felix stated, though he didn’t actually know for sure.

May set her cruth on the ground, sighing heavily. “If you’re sure,” she turned to leave, then looked back, having made barely a step.

“Go on,” Felix encouraged, trying not to wince from the pain in his arms. With every passing moment, he was more and more sure he’d broken several bones.

May turned back, slowly diminishing in size as she hobbled onward. Felix watched, feeling anxiety electrify his muscles. Once, he’d been so certain everything would work out fine in the end that he spared no time for doubt or thought as he charged headfirst into danger. But after everything that he’d seen - all the hypocrisy, cruelty on both sides, rows of corpses draped in stitched sweaters and broken dreams - he couldn’t keep on like that.

Felix propped himself up on his grenade launcher, resolutely keeping his eyes on the horizon instead of the direction May had gone off to.

Something growled and skittered in the distance. Felix glanced around, seeing nothing but the slow onset of night. Olympus hung in the sky like a judging eye, enormous compared to everything below its gaze. The vast, flat plain stretched out exactly the same in every direction.

The wind played with Felix’s hair, seeping in right under his clothes. He was so grateful no such thing had existed on the Groundbreaker. Grass rustled gently, something slithering towards him- no, that was just the breeze. Just the breeze . . .

Shadows crept over the land, every rock and tree leaving a jagged stain behind it. Felix struggled to zip up his jacket, his elbows flaring in pain with every movement. Boredom cloaked everything, making each second tick by impossibly slowly. The man stared at the same shapes in front of him, watching shadows inch over them in tiny increments. Sleep crept up on him, hand in hand with the darkness. He wished he could lay his head down on his hand, close his eyes and wake up safe and sound back on the Unreliable.

Felix wished for so much, but if wishes came true, his father would not be Chairman Rockwell and his brother would be a great hero of the revolution. And Spectrum Vodka would taste better.

Felix winced, finding that his arm had slipped from holding up his grenade rifle, stuck awkwardly halfway to the ground. He wrenched it free, hissing.

Something out there hissed right back at him.

Felix scrambled to point his gun in that direction, unwieldy fingers aching under the strain. The eyes of a large raptidon bored into him, pinpricks of light against the encroaching night. Felix aimed right at its face. The creature dodged deftly, the blast illuminating rows of spikes on its back. It darted between the sparse rocks like a saltuna swimming up a narrow stream, meandering closer to its solitary prey.

Felix let loose another grenade, trusting the raptidon to step right into its path. It recoiled at the last moment, the shrapnel only scratching its face. The animal turned and roared, maw twisted in obvious pain. It abandoned the subtlety, charging right at Felix.

In desperation, Felix did the one thing his grenade gun’s measly instructions manual had expressly forbid: shot the raptidon at point-blank range.

The fiery explosion lit up the landscape, recreating for the briefest of moments, how it had looked under the light of day. The animal fell backwards with the force of the blast, landing a few feet from Felix. Its great bulk lay unmoving, maw forced open in a thoroughly unnatural manner. The rows of spikes on its back and sides were shattered into hundreds of pieces, each glinting in whatever sparse light the faraway stars offered.

Felix smiled, adrenaline buzzing in his veins. He felt so very lightheaded, even when the fatigue from his injuries had abated before. Felix laughed. He had no idea how he’d lived this long. The man shifted his hands from the gun, though they no longer hurt. Just a pins-and-needles sensation below the elbows.

Felix’s gaze dropped to his legs. Spots of blood were forming on his pants, dying the synthetic cloth bright red. The man smiled, watching the splotches grow bigger. They looked like random blobs of paint May liked flinging on a paper sheet or convenient wall. She always claimed she was drawing abstract art, and that it was a famous and renowned art style from centuries past, but he didn’t believe her.

Felix watched the bloodstains grow in size. He knew he was supposed to do something, but he felt simultaneously so light he could float away, and so tired he could lay down that very instant and become just another layer of soil, asleep for all eternity. Asleep for all eternity . . . that didn’t sound right. He was waiting for someone, but who? And why?

Slowly and gently, Felix toppled to the side, the night sky tilting sideways right before his eyes. None of it was right, but he couldn’t name a single thing that was wrong. As darkness crept up on him like a corporate assassin, he wondered if he was supposed to be sleeping somewhere else.

A harsh light forced Felix awake, beaming right into his eyes like a deadly lazor. He pushed his head weakly to the side, the mere strain of opening his eyes suddenly too much. There was shuffling somewhere to his left, and the searing light was pointing away. 

“May?” Felix wheezed, unable to make out the shapes.

“Who else would I let fetch you?” she sighed “It’s surgery time soon, by the way. I’ll have to leave.”

Why would she need surgery? Last he’d seen, May was quite adept at handling her cane. Unless . . . “What’d I break?” Felix tried to sound carefree, but his dry throat wouldn’t let him. A headache was building as well, making everything feel like a nasty hangover. But the situation had in truth been much worse.

“I forgot the list,” said May “But that’s not really important right now.”

“Okay,” Felix squinted up, the little shape by his bedside clearer “Oh. Even now . . . when I’m in bed, you’re so . . . short.”

“Sleep well, little brother,” she patted his hand. Her gauntlet was unusually warm. “I’ll get back at you for that later.”

Felix smiled, the gesture pulling at his cracked lips. He was in for a terrible fate: becoming a painting poser. Truly, the stuff of nightmares.


End file.
